Comet C/2012 S1 Ison is approaching the Sun (18 Nov. 2013)

On 18 Nov. 2013 at 04:50 UT comet C/2012 S1 Ison was imaged again at Virtual Telescope, under poor (full Moon, haze, very low altitude) conditions, remotely using the Planewave 17″ robotic unit: likely this is the object imaged under the worse conditions ever tried at Virtual Telescope.

Despite this, the comet showed his features quite well, with a complex pattern revealing a very interesting structure in the ion tail. Above is an image coming from the average of six, 90-seconds exposures, with the robotic mount tracking the fast apparent motion of the comet. Comet Ison will reach perihelion in ten days by now and likely, this is the last image taken via Virtual Telescope before it.

C/2012 S1 was reported to have undergone possible fragmentation, but still performs apparently well, so it will be very interesting to see what really happened there in the incoming days.

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